British rowhouses / FRI 1-30-26 / Small branch of Marvel Comics? / Jalapeño topper / Call ahead, in a way / Mylar alternative / Switch to a shorter line, say / Leader of China? / Group of Alpha males? / Piedmont province with a namesake wine / Brand whose logo has an A-shaped caliper / Capture a moment, in fiction / Chaney of classic horror / Elicit the facepalm emoji, say

Constructor: Robyn Weintraub

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: MEWS (31D: British rowhouses) —

A mews is a row or courtyard of stables and carriage houses with living quarters above them, built behind large city houses before motor vehicles replaced horses in the early twentieth century. Mews are usually located in desirable residential areas, having been built to cater for the horses, coachmen and stable-servants of prosperous residents.

The word mews comes from the Royal Mews in London, England, a set of royal stables built 500 years ago on a former royal hawk mews. The term is now commonly used in English-speaking countries for city housing of a similar design. [...] Mews derives from the French muer, 'to moult', reflecting its original function to confine a hawk to a mews while it moulted. William Shakespeare deploys to mew up to mean confine, coop up, or shut up in The Taming of the Shrew: "What, will you mew her up, Signor Baptista?" and also Richard III: "This day should Clarence closely be mewed up".

The term mews is still used today in falconry circles in English-speaking countries to refer to the housing of the birds of prey used in falconry. (wikipedia)

• • •

There it is. There's the Friday puzzle I've been missing, craving, chasing. The one that explodes in bursts of whooshes and zooms but somehow also manages not to be insultingly easy. Choked with marquee answers—really worthy marquee answers. When I say "worthy," that doesn't mean they are all precisely to my tastes—I'd be happy never seeing another Marvel character in my grid again, so BABY GROOT didn't exactly thrill me (33A: Small branch of Marvel Comics?), but even as I entered it in, I thought "that's a pretty good answer for someone who likes that sort of thing" (I had "BABY" and started scrolling through the Marvel hero roster wondering which one they were babifying now: BABY SPIDER-MAN? BABY BLACK PANTHER? BABY THOR!? Then I remembered Groot—the Marvel equivalent of an ENT, i.e. a tree creature (or in the case of BABY GROOT, a little "branch" creature)—and remembered that I had, in fact, seen a BABY GROOT ... somewhere. Comics? Movies? Don't remember). As for the other long answers: yee haw. T-MINUS ZERO got me started, though clunkily, as that exact phrase somehow isn't a top-of-the-brain, rolls-off-the-tongue countdown phrase for me, but after that? The puzzle burst open: "CHECK PLEASE!" GHOST STORIES! GOES BERSERK! and on and on, spiraling through the (SPIRAL) GALAXY. Fourteen (14!) answers of 8 or more letters in length, all of them solid, many of them great. I particularly love the pairing in the SW corner: it's like the puzzle is speaking directly to me, giving advice on how to survive life in an increasingly fascist country that is dedicated to harming its own people (via secret police or infectious diseases, take your pick): "FACE REALITY!" (tough!). "REMAIN CALM!" (tougher!). Good advice! I'll try!

The difficulty for me today was entirely in the short stuff. Luckily, the short stuff is mostly not ugly stuff, so I didn't mind the fight (I do resent fighting for what is ultimately a cruddy answer). Trouble with the short stuff started early, in NW, with both RADIO (2D: Call ahead, in a way) and EDIT (17A: Switch to a shorter line, say). In neither case was I imagining the correct context. I might "call ahead," but I would never RADIO anyone, as I am not a cop checking in with headquarters (or whoever else "radios" on a regular basis. Cabbies? Military personnel?). And the clue on EDIT had me thinking of checkout lines, obviously. I forgot that [British rowhouses] were called MEWS (at M-WS I actually thought "MOWS?"). A LOT was hardish to get to via 32D: Every day, say. And it went on like this, with the clues to the answers testing me, and then the long answers thrilling me. FRAT came as a total surprise (46D: Group of Alpha males?)—is there a FRAT that's abbreviated "Alpha"? I guess the Greek letter alone was supposed to tip me. I had NOTES before TONES (57A: Steps on a scale), which kept that FRAT corner tough. Without a "?" on [Jalapeño topper], the fact that it was a "letteral" clue (referring specifically to the TILDE on the letter Ñ) never occurred to me. In that same section, I wanted SINO- before INDO- (55A: Leader of China?). As for "DEEP," no way (58A: "Whoa ... that's too much for my brain to handle!"). No hope. I don't think the clue is very good. How do I know something's "DEEP" if it's "too much for my brain to handle"? Makes no sense. If my brain can't handle it, maybe it's just "CONFUSING" or "WRONG." Or maybe it's shallow and I'm just "STUPID." Is the tone of "DEEP" facetious? Mocking? Again, without crucial context, this clue did nothing for me. But it's the only toughish clue that I ended up booing at. The rest all seemed fair and fine.

Bullets:

• 5A: Piedmont province with a namesake wine (ASTI) — "Piedmont" = "wine" = four letters = ASTI. Reflex answer.
• 24A: It's -90º at the South Pole: Abbr. (LAT.) — yes I wrote in LOW and no I will not be taking any questions at this time.
• 36A: Brand whose logo has an A-shaped caliper (ACURA) — I never really thought about that logo as looking like anything in particular, but of course it's a caliper. Maybe if I worked with calipers more often (i.e. at all), that fact would've registered.

• 39A: Mylar alternative (LATEX) — again, need context! Looks like maybe ... balloons? Probably other stuff too, but there are definitely both LATEX and mylar balloons.
• 40A: Capture a moment, in fiction (STOP TIME) — "in fiction?" You "capture a moment" by ... depicting it. That's all fiction is. I don't really know what this clue is referring to, specifically. STOP-TIME is also a term from the jazz world: "a technique or effect in which the rhythm section stops playing for one or more beats each measure, usually for a chorus, while a soloist continues to play" (Collins). It's also the name of this song.

• 6D: Eggshell, for one (SHEEN) — another short one that flummoxed me. I knew it was a COLOR or a HUE, a SHADE of, say, stocking, but SHEEN, you got me there. I guess we're talking about paint.

• 28D: Florida setting for "The Birdcage" (SOUTH BEACH) — me: "ooh, I know this." me also: [writes in SOUTH MIAMI]. 

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Five train in Brooklyn / THU 1-29-26 / Like a listening device made out of a paper clip, a plastic straw and seven Lego blocks / Busiest French airport not serving Paris / Bum's place in a bar / Michigan's historic 1991 basketball team, familiarly / Texter's declaration of affection / Villain portrayer in "Rocky III" / Clubber ___, "Rocky III" villain

Constructor: Kit Sheffield

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Gently down the stream ..."— answers ending with the letter string "-ROW" are entered in the grid as if "ROW" were a separate word describing how the remaining letters should be written in; that is, all the preceding letters in the answer are arranged in a repeated, grid-spanning ROW:

Theme answers:

• GGGGGGGGGGGGGGG (20A: Expand => GROW = "G" ROW (i.e. a row of "G"s))
• SORSORSORSORSOR (37A: Sadness => SORROW = "SOR" ROW (i.e. a row of "SOR"s))
• TOMORTOMORTOMOR (52A: Day after today => TOMORROW = "TOMOR" ROW (i.e. a row of "TOMOR"s)

Word of the Day: MACGYVER[ED] (3D: Like a listening device made out of a paper clip, a plastic straw and seven Lego blocks) —

to make, form, or repair (something) with what is conveniently on hand

Angus MacGyver, as portrayed by actor Richard Dean Anderson in the titular, action-packed television series MacGyver, was many things—including a secret agent, a Swiss Army knife enthusiast, and a convert to vegetarianism—but he was no MacGuffin (a character that keeps the plot in motion despite lacking intrinsic importance). In fact, so memorable was this man, his mullet, and his ability to use whatever was available to him—often simple things, such as a paper clip, chewing gum, or a rubber band—to escape a sticky situation or to make a device to help him complete a mission, that people began associating his name with making quick fixes or finding innovative solutions to immediate problems. Hence the verb MacGyver, a slang term meaning to “make, form, or repair (something) with what is conveniently on hand.” After years of steadily increasing and increasingly varied usage following the show’s run from 1985 to 1992 (tracked in some detail here), MacGyver was added to our online dictionary in 2022. (merriam-webster.com)

• • •

Congratulations to frequent comments-section contributor Kit ("kitshef") on this NYTXW debut. Was a little confused when I saw all the "G"s start to line up but decided to keep solving and assume everything would eventually become clear. That moment came (with a genuine, big "aha") when I saw SOR SOR take shape and thought "OK, now I really need to know what's going on with the theme." Looked at the clue (37A: Sadness), thought SORROW, wondered why I was only seeing "SOR"s ... and pow, aha. It's a "SOR" ROW. Very clever. Yes, you get gibberish in the grid, but it's ... meaningful gibberish. It's actually a rather simple, elegant visual expression of ordinary words. There's something strangely poetic about it, almost like the units that make up the "rows" are metrical units, poetic feet making perfectly regular 15-letter lines. It's not exactly iambic pentameter, but SOR SOR SOR SOR SOR does have five units, and TOMOR(row) and TOMOR(row) and TOMOR(row) is straight out of Shakespeare, for god's sake. My one disappointment with the theme came just after I got the "SOR" row. At that point, I didn't know the themers were all going to be rows, so when I looked back at the "GGGG...." answer I had left behind, I thought, "ha, amazing—a G-STRING!" But no, no stripper attire today. Just a "G" row ("GROW!"). If having the "G" string be just another "Row" was kind of a let-down, getting TOMOR TOMOR TOMOR brought my appreciation of the theme back up somewhat. Anytime the puzzle wants to quote Macbeth to me, I'm here for it.

While I enjoyed the theme, this puzzle was not nearly challenging or tricky enough for a Thursday. I suppose it's possible that solvers might've found the theme inscrutable for a good deal of time, but the rest of the grid offered almost nothing in the way of challenge. I didn't even see some of the clues in a few of these corners, so easily did everything fill itself in. ORATE DALES and D-LIST ... I don't think I even looked at any of those clues. The Downs in that SW corner went right in like it was Monday. Possibly (probably) the toughest thing for solvers to tackle today—certainly the toughest for me—was MACGYVERED (as past participle adjective!). Parsing it was ... an adventure. Me: "what adjectives start with 'MACG'? I must have an error.” But LIMO and ADAM were undeniable and NICE (despite being a city and not, in my mind, an "airport") (17A: Busiest French airport not serving Paris) was really the only option there. So ... once again, just plow forward and hope things become clear. A few more letters in and things seemed to be getting less not more clear (a "Y"? a frickin' "V"?) but then I had an "aha" moment as big as, maybe bigger than the SORSORSORSORSOR one—of course: it's MACGYVERED! From the '80s TV show I never watched about the guy who famously invents makeshift devices to ... I dunno, get out of danger? Beat the bad guys? You didn't have to watch the show to know the concept. Iconic. I even remember the actor's name, Richard Dean Anderson—how!? Childhood TV memories are powerful, I guess. Speaking of, this puzzle is awfully, terribly, exceedingly Gen-X-coded. The proper nouns in this one hardly ever escape the '80s/'90s vortex. The Princess Bride (1987). The Simpsons (still on, somehow, but biggest in the '90s), The FAB FIVE (1991-93), MacGyver (1985-92). There's even a weird mini-obsession with Rocky III (1982) (1D: Clubber ___, "Rocky III" villain = LANG) (35A: Villain portrayer in "Rocky III" = MR. T). As a card-carrying member of Gen X who watched "The Simpsons" religiously and who actually attended Michigan during the FAB FIVE years, this puzzle seemed aimed specifically at me, where its pop culture sensibilities are concerned. I'd love to cheer for that, but if I'm being fair, the cultural breadth of focus here seems awfully NARNARNARNARNAR. 

And then there's the fill, which is a little on the weak side. It's not just that the grid is built in such a way that we get a lot of short stuff, it's that the short stuff is too often OOF-y. That "X" may be the most unnecessary and costly "X" I've ever seen in a grid. A partial pharma answer???? (GLAXO-) crossed with a partial French phrase?????! (À DEUX). Yeeesh and yikes. I feel like the (understandable) commitment to MACGYVERED created a kind of tight situation, as did the fact that the grid is built in such a way that the G---O pattern (where GLAXO is now) is immovable. It cements the first and second themer together. You cannot change that "G" or that "O" and so ... options get very, very limited. Thus, you get this very MACGYVERED solution. GLAXO / À DEUX is the equivalent of ... trying to build a listening device out of a paper clip, a plastic straw and seven Lego blocks. Crazy emergency move. Just somehow not as cool as anything MacGyver ever did (probably—again, never seen the show). There had to have been other options (?). Not much else made me wince outright, except "I DIG," which crosswords have falsely caused us to accept as a thing people ever actually said. Also, I've never heard "Capisce" used as anything but a question ("Capisce!?")—as merriam-webster dot com says, it's interrogative ("used to ask if a message, warning, etc., has been understood"). No one would say "Capisce" to mean simply "I DIG" (just as no one but a caricature of a beatnik on TV would say "I DIG" at all). The last real wince was that NETS clue (66A: Five train in Brooklyn). I think it's trying for a subway pun (???). I don't know why that clue doesn't have a "?" on it. The only way I can make sense of the clue is to read it as referring to the Brooklyn NETS, a professional basketball team. Since professional basketball teams have five players on the court at any give time, I think that's where the "five" comes from. Presumably, these five players "train" (in the sense of workout / practice) in Brooklyn. So it's "Five (who) train in Brooklyn" (!?). Tortured syntax on that clue. (If the clue is somehow not basketball-related at all, you'll let me know, thanks)

Bullets:

• 31D: Bum's place in a bar (STOOL) — "Bum" is your ass. Well, someone's ass. Don't mind asses in the puzzle at all, but trying to make us think of "bum" in the pejorative sense of a down-and-out alcoholic, that I could do without.
• 28D: "Toodles!" ("I'M OFF!") — I wrote in "I'M OUT!" at first. "I'M OFF!" is better. Except it's still bad because it means you've got two "I'M"s in the grid (see 46D: "Leave this to me" = "I'M ON IT")
• 33A: Folie ___ (À DEUX) — probably should've defined this phrase earlier, for those not familiar with it. It's a French phrase (literally "madness for/of two") that refers to shared delusion or psychosis—people who do crazy things as a pair that they would (probably) never do on their own.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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